---
title:  "Workflow: Preview and Build your Help Books"
blurb:  "Your development be quicker by previewing your work with
        <em>Middleman</em>’s preview server before the next step: building your
        help book."
layout: template-logo-medium
navigate: true
---
<%= md_links %>
<%= md_images %>

<%= current_page.data.title %>
==============================

<%= current_page.data.blurb %>

Preview in a Web Browser
------------------------

_Middleman_ has its own web server so that you can preview your work during
development. From within your project directory, simply do:

~~~ bash
bundle exec middleman
~~~

This will start the server with your default target. To specify a specific
target to serve, simply use the `--target` command line option:

~~~ bash
bundle exec middleman --target your_target_here
~~~

In general the server address to connect to in your browser is `localhost:4567`,
but your environment could be different. The server will always provide one or
more addresses to try.

Note also that if you try to connect to your Help Book project at the server
root, you will receive a file not found error. Do remember that due to Mac OS X
help book requirements, the content actually begins at `/Resources/Base.lproj/`.


Build your Help Book(s)
-----------------------

Build your projects is similarly easy:

~~~ bash
bundle exec middleman build
~~~

…to build the default target.

~~~ bash
bundle exec middleman build --target your_target_here
~~~

…to build the target named `your_target_here`.


~~~ bash
bundle exec middleman build_all
~~~

…to build all of your targets at once.


Opening your Help Books
-----------------------

Mac OS X won't open help books that haven’t been indexed by the operating
system, so you’ll have to preview them in a real application. Because you’re
making help books, it’s presumed that you have an application that can fill this
role. If not, you can modify the included **HelpViewerApp** Xcode project that’s
in this documentation project’s directory.

To view the contents of the `.help` package in **Finder**, simply context-click
it and choose **Show Package Contents**.